The Long Awaited tour of the house.....

Happy New Year everyone!
I know it has been quite awhile since the last post, but here are a few things that have been going on since we've last spoken

• Andrew and I have bought a house!
• Kaylee graduated from college with a degree in Music Education
• Andrew just got a new job working as a mechanic at a scooter shop (which also works on other small engines)
• he loves it btw.. :)
• Gnarley is now 1 yrs old and still driving us crazy

Ok, so some of you that are on here are most likely looking for pictures of the new home!

Sorry it has taken so long, but I hope you enjoy!

if you would like to see the house go from a pile of dirt to what it is now, click here!

one of the guest rooms

office space upstairs

looking into the dining room 

view to the front door

the dining room

view from the kitchen down to the living room

our bedroom

bathroom

other side of bathroom

the "mudroom"

office space downstairs

music room downstairs

kitchen

living room

There is just a few pictures from around the house. If you would like to see more, let me know! I also posted this link in case you would like to see the full process of the house being built!

Hopefully we'll have more posts coming soon on all of our projects we have done/ working on!

Till next time....

Snowed in= deliciosas sopaipillas

I'm sure you all have had at least ONE birthday celebration at a mexican restaurant... right?
well, you've most likely recieved the embarassing sobrero allong with the the unknown bready-crispy substance covered in amazing cinnamon sauce with some ice cream and a candle. know what that is? its SOPAPILLAS!

as my husband and I are snowed in our apartment, we got a little tired of watching Bones episodes, so we decided to try something new. We have about 1/2 cup of milk, and one egg. what do to what to do....

Oh! i found a recipe that only uses one egg, and no milk! perfect!

Hello Cream cheese spirals. you remind me a lot of my friend sopapilla, except, rolled up. Delicioso!

so, here is the process it took to end up with this! recipe card to follow, of course :)

started with the sugar, butter, and cream cheese. blended until it made a thick, creamy dough-ish texture.

sifted in the flour

mixed it in more, ended up like this:

split the dough in half to make 2 batches, rolled into balls and pressed onto wax paper.

after this, chill in the fridge for it to harden and thicken up some.

meanwhile, i made the stuff to fill it with. (i chose not to do the nuts)

1 egg white

brown sugar and cinnamon

"like so..." (i hate that phrase)

 now take the dough, roll it out to a perfect 11" circle. I eyeballed this one, which turned out perfect, of course. (KIDDING! ha. i rolled it out, and used my plate to cut a perfect circle.)

also, slice it until you have 16 slices.

 

brushed on the egg mixture, layed down some of the brown sugar/ cinnamon...

 then roll up like crescent rolls!

after this, simply place on a pan and bake at 375 for about 20 minutes 

"until golden brown"

YUM.

(by the way, if these are hard to read, sometimes clicking on the picture opens a new window and you can see it a little bigger. if it is still too small, holding the shift button while pressing the + sign zooms in)

disfrutar!

(enjoy!)

Delish!

Ok, so it's been awhile.
a LONG while.

Besides moving, settling, working, and school(ing), I have finally had some time to sit down and talk to my computer (and whoever is reading this) about what's goin' on!

would you happen to own these few items?

 (the spices are oregano and basil)

well, with these simple ingredients plus a couple more..), you can make this!

and here's the fabulous recipe to follow :)

trust me, you'll want to try this.

(that's my "oh my, this is delicious" face..while trying to laugh 

while Andrew takes a random picture of me)

so again, you'll want to try it. it literally took about 10 minutes to make. Plus, for two people, we have about a whole 'nother serving for leftovers! yay!

enjoy!

been awhile...

For a quick update on things:

• We have moved into our apartment! (i know, i still haven't taken pictures)
• made 72 cupcakes for my senior recital
• made birthday cupcakes for my flute professor (i will post those recipes for sure!)
• got a cake job coming up in Feb. for Yonder mountain String Band.  Heard of them? well, they seem to be quite popular in the "newgrass" crowd. that should be fun!
• Andrew will be attending Chatt. Tech in the Spring for motor sports technician (working with motorcycles and such)

that's it for new stuff lately, i will be coming back for recipes and pictures!

stay tuned!

Ugly brass lamps

I'm sure you all have been to goodwill before, if not, you should go! there is so much good stuff! (if you dont mind cleaning things up and giving them a new life!) so, because we are moving soon and are in need of things to make our space a home, I wanted to hop into Goodwill to check out what they had. (I tend to do that often..)

I found some ugly brass lamps, you know, the ones that everyone has at some point and can't wait to get rid of.. maybe something like this?

We paid attention to the shape of the lamps, not worrying about if they matched or not. oh! and make sure that you check the lamps before you buy.. luckily, they set up an outlet at the lamp section with a couple light bulbs. these were good to go!

We ran into walmart and bought some black flat spray paint (I love the flat because it makes it look modern, but not shiny). Also bought some nice lamp shades, they were also pretty modern and a neutral color that goes with the master bedroom idea (in my head).

and voila! new lamps! Andrew even mentioned how he liked that they weren't the same and were unique!

my shopping list:

• brass lamps:
• one for $7
• one for $4
• flat spray paint
• $2.40
• lamp shades
• 2 for $14 each
• TOTAL:  about $26 for 2 brand new lamps! and I must say, they look quite nice :)

Must be Magic!

Finally, here are the long overdue pictures of the magic cake!

now, if there are a few things ive learned from making cupcakes, it would be that I need to stop being so stingy with the batter and really fill the things up.

I planned on taking a picture of how puny my original cupcakes looked to the monstrous peanut butter ones, but forgot. so, imagine a small tiny, barely filled to the rim cupcake next to a spilling over with peanut-buttery goodness cupcake. ya, looks pathetic eh? therefor, i had to redo basically all of them.

the good news is that all the little decorations and icing turned out great!

another thing I've learned- do not try to dye your own icing black. I thought starting with chocolate might make it quicker, plus i needed the chocolate flavor for the icing. well, with my small little jar of gel coloring, i was not able to achieve my goal. so i tried with vanilla. (obviously), took much longer and still didn't turn out black black. I decided to run to publix and pay $4 for a pound of black black butter cream. that really makes things so much easier... 

here is the finished product!

if you are wondering how i achieved the top hat, i actually poured chocolate into a cake mold, one that releases with a buckle, and froze it. Surprisingly, it worked out great! Didn't even have to re-do anything! i covered it with the black icing because as mentioned before, i was unable to make chocolate black.

After i was done and let if cool, i added on the words for Brandon's 12 birthday! 

For the Oreo cake (SO easy!)

I took a yellow cake mix (helped bring out the oreo flavor), and added in about a cup of crushed up oreo.

 if you would like more oreo flavor, keep adding more! 

the icing was just vanilla icing, i made mine from scratch. typically you would crush up more cookies and sprinkle on top.

For the peanut butter cake

White cake mix

3/4C peanut butter (i use creamy)

for the icing, just a plain chocolate works great. I used dark chocolate for this one to be more black and it turned out delicious!

any other questions? ask!

oh, and p.s., Andrew is demanding I do a post about him or something at least interesting to him... (which is basically only motorcycles).  

...that post will come later.. :)

In progress...

Hello again! (I seem to be posting much more than I expected!)

I have another order coming up- a "magic" theme birthday! for this one, 35 cupcakes, and a small cake to feed 10. It will be a top hat with a rabbit coming out, and playing cards/ stars all over and on the cupcakes.
should be good!

I have most of the things done, just waiting to put it all together! pictures to come soon (of course)


one more thing, we have decided to buy an apartment! so, with that i will have more postings on design and home ideas. So excited to get to make my own space! cant wait!!